Monday, August 25, 2008
... with supreme visions of lonely tunes
Since July, 1st also here in The Netherlands smoking is banned in public places such as restaurants, cafés, bars, &c.
This is done in order to prevent employees to work "in an environment were they are constantly exposed to the harmful effects of smoking", as prime minister Balkenende said.
The obvious question that come to mind is: "Holland? Smoking ban??? And what about Coffee shops???"
Exactly.
This ban works far all places, included coffee shops. "Coffee shops will be treated in the same manner as other catering businesses. They will be smoke-free".
But... of course there is a but because we're in Holland.
But coffee shop owners argued that the ban only applies to tobacco, and just for it!
This means that you're still not allowed to smoke tobacco, not even in coffee shops, but you can still smoke cigarettes containing only cannabis!
"The Dutch ban, which prohibits tobacco smoking in all public places of employment to protect workers’ health, is only for tobacco and makes no change to marijuana policy" said Saskia Hommes, a spokeswoman for Dutch Health Minister. "The government will have to see if the law is enforceable" she said.
To me this does not make so much sense.
I mean: coffee shops are places built for let people smoke inside freely. And the owners or the employees know that if they go to work for a coffee shop they're going to sniff all others' smoke.
If you decide that smoking and to sell marijuana is legal, than you should also allow places where people can smoke freely, no?
But anyway selling marijuana is not legal in The Netherlands, it's just not punishable. Really.
Is this hypocrisy or just a pragmatical way of trying to solve an unsolvable problem?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Again on piracy...
Well, after my previous post, some things has happened, so I thought you ALL be interested in some updated opinions of mine.Mainly two things in this last week attracted my attention. One is that in U.K. three big Gaming Companies have sued a number of people for having downloaded their games illigally (Main of which, pinball!!! But who is downloading pinball anyway?!? ). So, I thought, I should be happy, as I just said that I was against copying software. Well, I'm not. The reason I am not is that this is a completely useless move, these poor people will have to pay a lot of money and all the rest of the world will keep downloading unnoticed. I think the solution is to allow downloading and to let it pay a small amount of money for it. If someone wants a physical support, such the dvd or the blue ray, he will pay more. If the guy's happy with a downloaded version, then he could pay much less. This, in my opinion would decrease very much piracy.
So, why these companies keep getting some random money sueing people instead of taking a effective act? The answer has been clearly given by David Reeves, responsable of Sony Computer Entertainment, for the exact same country, UK:
"We know about it (game piracy, ndr), we certainly know how it's done. It sometimes fuels the growth of hardware sales, but on balance we are not happy about it."
....
How to say, we will not allow it officially, but if you keep doing it, for us is ok....
Then, when asked what they are planning to do about the fact that games in the PAL region (Europe) are always coming much later then in the NTSC region (U.S. and Japan) he answers:
"We are a PAL market and we are going to do it in PAL and we are going to do it properly, you can wait for it and you can have it in good quality, you know you can get the stuff from Bittorrent if you want to and download PSP games, it's up to you."
So, now it's clear why company don't do something serious about it... and who am I to be against them?
Monday, August 18, 2008
Nihon-koku: The religion
Besides the food, there is another important aspect that characterize the society of a country, both in good and in bad things, and that is the religion. All the traditions, both for family and big scale society are somehow connected, or at least originated, by their religious belief.This, is of course true also for Japan.
Nevertheless, the religion there is lived in a complete different way then we do, also because the religion itself it is very different. First of all, they don't have a unique religion, but there are 2 completely different religions that somehow cohexist. The oldest one is the Shinto.
Shintō originated in prehistoric times, as a religion with respect for nature and in particular certain sacred sites. Each worshipped element was associated with a deity, so Shinto is a complex polytheistic religion. The deities in Shintō are known as kami, and the word Shinto means the way of the gods. Worship of Shinto is done at shrines. Especially important is the act of purification before visiting these shrines. Shinto shrines can be distiguished by the typical Japanese gate (torii) made of two uprights and two crossbars.
The other religion professed in Japan is the Buddhism. Buddhism in Japan is more recent, as it arrived in the VI century from South Korea. The main kind of Buddhism that arrived in Japan is called Mahayana and is originated from India. Is much more personal then the other currents, so I think that found a good environment to grow among the Shinto beliefs. The buddhist religion is much more complex and has so many different aspect and currents that is really beyond my skills to describe it in few lines. I can only say that in Japan Buddhism followed more or less the Capitals. So, it mainly started in Nara, where still now there are many temples, and also where the Shingon form of Buddhism, more esotheric, spread for the first time in the country.
Around the 1100 the era of the Shogun begun (sorry for the rhyme...) and also Buddhism developed. The capital has been moved to Kamakura and there new form of Buddhism arrived. The most famous is the Zen, but this is only one example. Visiting the temple complexes it is clear the importance of synergy with nature. Many other places are very important for religion like Nikko, Koya-san and of course the whole city of Kyoto. Nevertheless, these two capitals show somehow the developement of Buddhism in Japan.
So, these two religions are the most important in Japan. How to distinguish one from the other? Hard to believe, but in Japan the difference is not always so clear. They are very well merged together, and each of them take care of some special aspect of the life of the people. For example, Shinto doesn't have any real answer for life after death, so the funerals and all the death concerning rituals and belief are normally left to Buddhism. Shinto, on the other hand, is much better in solving everyday problems, like passing exams or being succesful in life, so for these kind of needs people often go to Shrines. Most of the Temples and the Shrines have many aspect from both the religions. This is possible because in Japan religion is not very important in every day life. It is more something parallel, that is always there, but doesn't affect your life. So, almost everybody will have some kind of shrine at home, or will bring the new born baby to a Shinto Shrine or will have a Buddhist funeral, but is more a matter of tradition then real faith. Every aspect of life is connected with a different ritual and, nowadays, christian weddings are becoming more and more popolar due to the beauty of the white dress and the grandeur of the decorations. Often they are performed in Wedding Halls and not in Churces though.
Festivals are very common, and can be related to nature and agriculure aspects, so more from Shinto origin, and they are called matsuri, or they can be more related to the time of the year, so they are have more Buddhist origin and are called nenjyuu gyouji. An example is the New Year day.
What I really liked about religion in Japan is that is not punishing the people for being people, but is really human-oriented. We are like we are, we are part of the Earth and the Nature, so we have to cohexist with it and respect it. We must find our way to be happy, and this can be achived with equilibrium and order, but we shouldn't be afraid of punishment. There are very wise and illuminated people, but there is not a God with a flash light, thundering around for sinners. The concept of sin and suffer is much different from ours, their religion has on the very center of interest life, our has death. That is the main difference I found. This is why I prefear so much more their point of view. It is so amazing that such old beliefs, like the Shinto religion, are still followed in one of the most modern countries of the world. I think the reason is that they live religion in much a more relaxed way then us, it is more something for the free time, to ask what you need, more then paying a everyday price to survive life and reach the eternal life (after death...). In Japan religion gives just the basic necessary answer to not be afraid too much about the future, but leaves people free to pursue their happiness, and this is such a more succesful way to go for a religion. The moral there is very strong, but is more given by traditions then the fear of a punishment. This is more effective, because you behave in a certain way because you, and you only, believe it is a good way to go, not because you hope that behaving this way God will assure you a nice afterlife. Of course, the drawback is that these beliefs are harder to estirpate, because people is really convinced about it, they are not only afraid. If we don't steal only because we are afraid that we will be punished, if we know there is nobody to punish us, we will start to steal. But if we strongly believe that to have a working society we shouldn't steal, then we will never do that. This unfortunately, can be applied also to the rights of women or other more "extreme" traditions, but that's a bit the price to pay I guess.
Anyway, just to be on the safe side, I bought an hamulet of long life....
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Philosophical and moral consideration over the freedom of internet
My dears,It is some time that I have been thinking about it (indeed, you can see some hints in a old post), and now a new event made me think about it again. Italy has patetically tried to censor the website "pirate bay", a searching engine of torrent files. The government has obliged the ISPs to forbit the access to this server by address and IP number. Of course, there are just hundreds of ways to reach the website anyway. Several of them are explained directly in the blog of the Pirate Bay. In this blog, exactly as in most of the newspapers that show this news, this fact has been described as an expression of a fascist regime. The freedom of speech and the freedom of internet in in great risk, they say. Well, to me it is a very delicate matter. I mean, I believe that it is absolutely against the human rights and the rights of speech to censor a website where people express their opinion. Like, for example, this. Every newspaper, as well as every blog or website should be able to publish thir ideas in the same way. What leave a bit in doubt is the fact that people download software and movies and so on from internet. It is a difficult matter. I cannot deny that it is very tempting to do that. Nevertheless, I think that we should find a way to make it legal, and to pay a bit for it. Because, people are working for that software. Why we are willing to pay 200€ for a cool graphic card, but we want to download a software for free? The work behind, the value of the good, is the same. Maybe even more for some piece of software. Why we think that paying 200€ for a copy of Windows Vista is not worthy? I think that software should be paid, the problem is that companies agrees in some share of piracy, as long as other big companies buy the original version.
Also for music and movies, there is quite some work behind, that somehow should be repaid. The problem is that in Italy most of the money goes to the SIAE, a system that exist ONLY in Italy and it is completely beyond any reason. This should be completely closed. And, there should be the choice of buying the products both of physical support and on internet. Of course, the price should be very different.
Here in Holland a brand new Blue Ray movie, the newest movie, il maximum 29€. It's easy to find BR discs for 20€. DVDs are maximum 20€ and often you can buy 5 movies for 5€. Then, the price of downloading should be in proportion. I cannot pay more then 10€ for a high definition movie for which I don't get a physical support. I'm a great fan of the idea of paying, say, 50 euros per month, and being able to download everything you want. This money should be then distributed to the producers. This is my solution to piracy.
Regarding the event happened in Italy, to me looks more patethic then fascist. There is a bit of abuse of the words fascist and comunist and so on... we should pay maybe more respect to people who really fighted against these dictatures, and realise we are mainly trying to fight againt stupidity. This is anyway a very difficult fight, as, like Einstein said, the most commond elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity, but there are still doubts about the first one. People wants security, wants to get the fingerprints of the romenian kids, but wants to be free to surf on internet, maybe also on porn websites or pedophiles websites. People wants the law to be strict, but wants to be "more equal then the others". Internet is a great mean of comunication, is a great invention and has a great potential. I'm totally against censorship but like everything, must be used with intelligence. Also nuclear power is a great invention, also dynamite, but can have terrible aspects. For sure, downloading music is not as terrible as that, but pedophily it may definitively be, and must be controlled. Also internet, as everything else, should be free when used with coscience. It is very hard to judge, or expecially to find a judge, for what is allowd and what is not, that is why it is so important that in every government there is an equilibrium of different forces, and that the power is not concentrated in only few hands. Here the problem of Italy must be solved.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Voyage au centre de la Pizza (2):
New Haven-style apizza
Two weeks ago I was fighting boredom watching growing little turkeys out of my window at the BNL dorm. After getting acquainted with a couple of them I decided my life needed something more.
So I contacted Ji, a Chinese friend of mine working in Massachusetts, and we decided to meet somewhere in between his place and Long Island.
After a quick check on Wikipedia I found the perfect meeting point: New Haven, Connecticut.
Besides being the city of the Yale University, this small city is also the home of the "best pizza out of Italy": the New Haven-style apizza.
This pizza is served by a series of small restaurants in the town's Little Italy, most of them owned by the descendant of an Italian immigrant, Frank Pepe, that in 1925 brought his Naples-style pizza in Connecticut.
A funny thing is that this geographically limited style of pizza is known as apizza, obviously coming from the dialectal form a pizz.
So we went there (pics are here) and we tried the famous white pie and the Mozzarella pie from Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana.
New Haven-style apizza is different from the other "pizzas" you can have in the States.
Firts it's not perfectly round but it has a more usual (in Italy) irregular rounded form.
It is traditionally baked in a coal- or wood-fired brick oven and it presents a thin crust with a dark, “scorched” crisp crust (more Italian like).
It is typically sold whole rather than by the slice.
At the end the New Haven apizza is technically pretty similar to the pizza we're used to in Italy, the only problem remaining the ingredients: the flour for the dough is still to much Amerikan style and they drown the pizza with a load of vegetable oil which makes it very heavy and it ruins the taste of an otherwise pretty good dish.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Voyage au centre de la Pizza (1):
New York-style pizza
According to a relevant number of physicists, pizza is the best dish in the world.
Moreover it's the pillar on which our marriage is based; so I decided to start a series of posts about it.
Yes, I know that the only real pizza is the one from Naples but as you should know every journey to the center of something starts with one step from far far away, that's why I started from NY (even because last week I was there and I was deadly bored so I needed to find a reason for life).
So... of course pizza is pretty popular in the U.S. due to the wide influence of Italian immigrants in American culture and they (the Americans) developed (shall we call this development?) a large number of regional forms of pizza, some of them scarcely resembling the real one.
One of the most famous un-real American pizzas is the New York-style pizza.
It differs from the Italian one in both shape and ingredients.
The shape is typically perfectly round due to the fact they cook it in a wide (round) pan. To me this makes it loose a lot of its lovable rough appearance, but ok, they are perfect so they have to cook a perfect shaped pizza.
It is also huge and usually served in slices.
The other main difference are the ingredients of the dough (what they call crust). American pizza has vegetable oil or shortening mixed into the dough; moreover it is made with a very high-gluten flour (13–14% protein content).
This allows the dough to be stretched rather thinly and the pizza becomes not so thick even without using a wood stove (which is btw never used).
But of course this make the pizza very fatty and tasting like a bagel rather than a real pizza.
About the toppings: the typical New York-style pizza is the pepperoni pizza which does not mean it's made with bell peppers (peperoni in Italian) but with a spicy salame (salamino piccante in Italian) and some loads of vegetable oil.
At the end it's not the worse pizza-like snack I tasted out of Italy (and this says a lot), but of course it's not pizza.
PS: I'd like to stress that I'm strongly convinced that Naples' pizza is the only real one. But since I'm from the north of Italy my judgments could be biased (my reference point is the epic and heartily missed Pizzeria da Ciccio in Monfalcone). So if someone feels to object on some bullshit I said, please feel free to do it. The world will be thankful.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Nihon-koku: the food
Here I am with one of the most important aspects of every culture: the food.As in Italy and in many other countries, the food in Japan is not only something you eat to survive, but has a social and cultural meaning. This is expressed in two main aspects: the efford and the skill to prepare the food, and the way it is consumed. Exactly as we are used to, also for them cooking needs preparation and skills, and is for certain aspect a real art. The art of cooking is particularly difficult because it involves several human senses, like smell, taste and view. As in other countries, also in Japan they try to satisfy all these senses.
Indeed, also the Japanese food was for me matter of prejudice, before leaving. I thought that they only eat raw fish and similar simple stuff. It is absolutely not true. They have a various and elaborated kitchen, that includes not only fish but also meat and vegetables, although meat is a sort of "new entry", because in the past was a really expensive good.
One aspect that I think is very important in japanese cuisine is the freshness of the food and the neatness of the kitchen area. This is often very visible, due to the fact that many dishes can be prepared directly on the table by the diners or the cooker is actually working in the main room of the restaurant, so everybody can see what he's doing and how. This is very useful also because facilitate very much the personal interactions among fellow diners and cooker. This also make it clear that eating is a social moment and may take quite a long period of time.
I had the feeling (but who's more expert then me can surely correct me) that fish is the simplest dish for them, is more like a "snack" or something you eat for a fast lunch or break. Fancy restaurants often serve meat.
Mainly, you can have nice meals composed with rice, or with various quality of noodles, that can be served dry or in a sort of buillon. Then there are fried dishes, the most famous one called tempura, that is a mixture of deep fried stuff, like fish, meat and vegetables. There is also an entire category of food cooked in the griddle, that usually have the suffix "yaki". Also, they have few dishes with a direct chinese origin, like the gyōza or the ramen (noodle soup, but made generally with chinese noodles instead of the japanese ones).
In general the composition of the meal is quite similar to what we have in Italy. There is a sort of main dish, based on rice or noodles (soba or udon), some soup ("brodo di cottura") and some side dishes, generally two or three, based on meat, fish, vegetables and tofu.
I'm describing some very general aspects, because it's really easy to write books about japanese cuisine! Also, every region has its specialities, and food habits can differ quite a lot from one place to the other.
Desserts are more rare and less elaborated then in our culture, maybe because they lacked of some ingredients (like chocolate....). Nevertheless, they managed to make some very nice sweet from what they have, mainly based on rice and sweet beans. Of course on this matter they have been quite open to the western experience, and now is very easy to find very nice french bakery or patisserie. Apparently they have been very fast and good learners, and they produce quite good products.
The cerimony of eating is different from ours, starting by the fact that they use always chopsticks and "normal" cutlery doesn't exist. In general, though, most of the etiquette rules are quite basic and don't differ to much from our habits. For example, it is common to do a toast before drinking and nobody should pour his own drink, but be ready to pour someone else drink when the glass in empty.
From social point of view, going out eating together is the easiest way to entratain a relation, and very often collegues go for dinner together and friends meet up at dinner time. Going eating out it is very common, probably more then what it is in our society, so it can happen to see people eating alone. For this reason, it is common to eat seating next to the cooking area, so it is possible to chat with the cooker or the barmen.
The eating aspect of the society was surely the one that made me feel more at home, and I really enjoy their wanderful menus!
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